Back at Hage:
Yuno is practicing his magic by using magic to cut the woods in the forest, while Asta is training using his new found sword. They are working very hard for the magic knights exam in 6 months.
"I should wrap up for today." Yuno said to himself. But suddenly, the image of Miki saving both him and Asta that day when Revchi attacked got him thinking again.
Yuno had so many questions for the ginger girl, how is she able to use magic so efficiently? How can she adapt to her grimoire that quickly? How can she fend off the ex-magic knight so easily?
Those thoughts flooded Yuno's mind the night after the fight and continued to linger onto him even when she's not here anymore. It made him look at the girl in a fresh light. He knows she's strong on using magic, but not that strong, she also made him realize that, if he wanted to become a magic knight, he had to get even stronger.
"No, just a bit more." he reminded himself.
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Going back to the church with the pile of wood floating behind him, Yuno suddenly saw Asta running past him, and the kid even taunted him! So with his competitive nature, especially to his childhood rival, the two immediately made it a race.
Running past the church's gate with all of the church's kids at the gate, Rekka shouted "goal!" as the two smallest kids ran up to greet them?
"Who...who got here first?" Asta asked between pants.
"Well...Yuno was a bit faster." Nask replied nonchalantly.
Not giving up, Asta said that he would race the raven haired male into the church, but Yuno quickly shut him up by using magic on him.
"Asta, Miki-san isn't here anymore so you gotta be more careful." Nash said as he and the other kids walked past him.
"Oh yeah, where do you think Miki-san is doing anyway?" Rekka asked.
"I don't know, maybe she's helping a relative of hers." Nash shrugged.
Meanwhile, at the royal castle:
"...250!" Miki shouted as she finally destroyed the large boulder in front of her only using her star whip.
"Alright!" she cheered. "I can clearly see the physical improvement in these few days. Now, how about I learn more spells in my grimoire."
Miki sat down and flip through her grimoire, in there is what is expected of your typical grimoire like spells and such, but what she found that was strange is that in one of the pages she flipped to, there is a big lock symbol with 4 metal chain spread out to the corner of the page.
"Huh? What is this?" The ginger raised her eyebrow, confused on the sight in front of her, normally a spell that the user couldn't unlock yet would just leave the page blank.
"So why is there a lock symbol here?" she questions, her hand glazed over the page.
The ginger is still pondering about what the lock means when suddenly, the grimoire she's holding starts to shake uncontrollably and jolts out of her hands, floating as the pages begin to flip wildly.
"H-Huh??!" Miki stammers in horror at the realization that she suddenly can't control her grimoire anymore "What's going on!?"
Miki has never encountered anything like this before, she had heard very little from books that a grimoire can be corrupted and lose control, but she didn't think it would happen to her, much less when she just got it merely a few weeks ago.
But before she could do anything, a portal suddenly formed from her grimoire and began to sucked her in.
"What the-" Miki startled. But it was too late, the portal had already pulled her in.
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Asta is just doing his normal training when he senses someone behind him, thinking it was Yuno, he asked if his rival was going to watch him train until the person spoke up and he realized it was Nash.
"Oh Nash, why are you here?" The ash-haired boy asked.
"Just watching a stupid person doing a stupid thing." Nash huffed.
"Oi?! What do you mean stupid?!" shouted as the younger lad.
"It is! You can't even use magic! And you're going to take the magic knight exam? You're going to fail."
"But that's not decided yet! Look! I even had a grimoire!" Asta said. "I'll get into a magic knight and then I'll become a wizard-"
"NO YOU WON'T!" Nash snapped. "Poor people like us don't get to dream like that."
It is visible that the red head boy is very frustrated, all of his life he was forced to believe that magic and status is everything in this world and without them, you're nothing. But here he is, seeing someone who has neither of them trying to fight back his fate, the thought of it alone sets the young boy back so much.
"Nash..." Asta walked up to the boy and then...
"YOU CAN'T JUST GIVE UP LIKE THAT YOU KNOW?! POSSIBILITIES EXIST IN EVERYONE!" The ash blond boy shouted at him.
"Shut up! No they don't!" Nash cried back, covering his ear from the last assault to them.
"Yes! They do!" Asta doesn't give up. "Look, I'm chasing my dream right now! Even if you're poor, you can be an amazing person. Do anything you want, make your dreams come true and make the people you care about happy."
Asta then picks up his sword.
"And I'm going to prove that. I'll join the magic knights and be the wizard king!"
And with that, Asta swings his sword and breaks a big boulder. In that moment, Nash, a pessimistic kid who is set on his fate in the world, saw something.
A hope. A light of hope that maybe, just maybe, people like him can also make a difference.
"Yuno and Miki will succeed as well, and the three of us will join the magic knights!" Asta continued, and at that precise instant, his thoughts changed.
"I wonder what Miki is doing?"
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"AHHHHHH! WHAT IS GOING ONNNNN????!!!!" Miki shrieks as she continues to fall deeper into the portal. Just a mere minute ago, she's just trying to learn new spells. Now, she's going who-know-where thanks to her grimoire.
Suddenly, Miki felt her body hit the ground below.
"Oof-" She huffed before slowly getting up.
"Ow..." She whined, rubbing her head as she tried to take the environment around her. The portal had already closed and she's now in the dark.
It was dark and cold, her eyes took a while so she could adjust to the place and that's when she saw it.
"A cave?" she asked to no one in particular, well, not like she had anyone anyway.
The place she landed on is a connecting point to different tunnels because she can clearly see 6 different paths leading to different routes whenever she turns around.
"My grimoire!" Miki gasped as she began to frantically search for the four leaf clover book, luckily finding it on the ground next to where she had landed.
"Thank goodness..." the ginger let out a sigh of relief when she found the grimoire.
But now, she's very skeptical of it. Sure, it is a rare and powerful one, I mean, a four leaf grimoire is no small thing, but it just literally opens up a portal without her control and could have possibly killed her if she isn't lucky enough.
"I need to be careful when using it from now on, otherwise I can end up dead." she reminded herself before focusing on her main objective, getting out of this damn cave.
"Now how do I get out of here?"
The place is probably as huge as the dungeons she had been forced in before because of its endless paths with no light at the end of it. The atmosphere is so cold and tense that it sends shivers down her spines. It feels like if she just relaxed just a strand of hair, something will jump from the shadows and devour her.
"I can't just stand here doing nothing, I need to find a way out of here fast before dad realizes that I'm out for too long and create a whole search party." she concluded before looking at the paths around her, each of them look exactly the same with no light emitting in any of them.
It's only at that moment when she decided, fuck it, and was about to go wherever that she noticed a glow, it comes out from one of the caves. Miki hesitated, but soon followed the strange source of light.
As she walked deeper into the cave and closer to the light source, her grimoire started to glow again, startling her, but luckily, it didn't do anything.
"Does my grimoire have something to do with this?" Miki asked herself.
Four leaf clover grimoires are certainly rare so very little is known about them, legends only say about how one will give its user tremendous power boost, but also good luck.
Well, this certainly doesn't look like good luck to her right now.
"Don't be distracted, Miki." The ginger shook her head. "You need to stay focused."
Walking deeper where the light source was, she once again found herself in another part of the dungeon, this time, the area emitted a blue light with a large mana surge. At the end of the place was a big door carved with engravings that Miki couldn't make out.
"It seems like I've walked into the main dungeon room and not an exit. If it wasn't for the situation right now, I'd be ecstatic." She chuckled.
The ginger was about to turn around to head back before suddenly she heard the sound of a magic trap spell activated. Immediately realizing something was up, she quickly jumped back from the entrance where she was standing where it immediately shut close from above.
"I could've been squash there." Miki thought.
But the danger is not over. Before Miki could even have a second to rest, a giant red summoning circle was activated in the middle of the room, it was bigger than any she had ever seen, and from the circle, a giant white snake white sharp horns scattered across its head appeared.
"Oh..no.." Miki gasped, realizing how fucked she is right now.
Ok, this grimoire really is trying to kill her now.
The snake slowly opens its ruby eyes and upon detecting Miki's mana in the room, it immediately let out a huge roar and began attacking the girl, its eye filled with murderous intent to devour her.
"Yikes!" Miki yelps as the giant snake swiftly slithers in her direction at a rapid speed, she quickly dodge the snake before its head crashes the stone wall behind her.
"Yes! Maybe the impact will neutralize the snake!" Miki thought.
Spoiler alert, it didn't.
The snake quickly recovered from the crash thanks to the armor/horns on its head protecting it and began to chase the girl again.
"NOOO" Miki shouted as she tried to run away from the giant serpent again.
"I need to deal with this serpent as quickly as possible." Miki thought as she quickly flipped her grimoire, trying to find an effective spell. "If I continue to drag this longer than it's supposed to, I don't know if I'll even get out of here alive."
"Celestial Magic: Neutron Star!"
A dense orb slowly appears in her hand, shining brightly due to all the mana being compressed.
"Yes! Now I just need to..."
Miki immediately turns around and throws the orb at the serpent, the snake bites at it, thinking it can consume the mana of the attack, but what it didn't know is that that's what the ginger girl had planned.
"Gotcha." Miki smirked.
The orb exploded inside the serpent's mouth, the amount of mana that's inside the orb burst upon making contact with the serpent.
The serpent howled in pain, its loud shriek causing the cave to rumble.
"It's distracted! Now's my chance!"
"Celestial Magic: Star bullets!"
Hundreds of star-shaped bullets hit the serpent, damaging it even further. This enrages the thing and it lunges at the girl, intending to devour her in one swoop.
Miki was about to summon another spell to counter the thing, but before she could do anything, a light beam suddenly appeared from behind her and blasted the serpent.
"W-what was that surge of mana!?" Miki was stunned.
The serpent that was hit by the beam released a bright light before it began to shrink and shrink, until it reversed into the size of a normal snake.
"So someone has enhanced this snake with so much mana that it makes it ridiculously strong." Miki concluded. "But who?"
She then looked behind her, remembering the beam that had saved her, but the only thing she sees behind her is the dungeon door, which leads to the treasure room.
"Did the door save me?" Miki asked herself, confused.
She walked closer to it cautiously, deciding to investigate, might as well explore the place and report this to her father later after she find a way out.
Upon closer investigation, she found out that the door has opened and showing its vast treasure from gold to jewelry to rare artifacts, it has everything that a dungeon could have.
"Wow...it's beautiful." Miki is mesmerized by the sight in front of her, it's not her first time seeing the view of a treasure room, but it's also not a common sight either thanks to her father who is still protective of her.
What stands out to her is that in the middle of the room, a pedestal stands and on that pedestal, an astrolabe resides.
The astrolabe looks like your normal astrolabe, but what's different is that it has a purple dial with a golden astronomy diagram engraved on it.
"Is this a magical artifact? I've never seen it before." Miki asked herself as she grabbed the object, still trying to rack her brain to find out if she had ever read about it before.
But as soon as she touched the astrolabe, a hologram suddenly appeared with projections of different planets and stars along with a language that she herself can't read.
"What the-"
Time suddenly felt like it had stopped, everything around her suddenly turned gray with the only exception being her, the astrolabe and her grimoire which is glowing.
"Is this why it's glowing? Because of this artifact?" the realization suddenly sinks in as Miki realizes, she isn't alone.
When she turned to look to her side, a tiny fairy-like being who was about the size of her hand appeared. The fairy gave her a startled look before its expression changed into a scowl.
"This is the person that got my four leaf grimoire? What a joke."
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A/N: New character who dis???